Now, according to reader (and Southwest employee) Tom LaBonty, Alaska Airlines is doing the same. Tom sent in the flyer below about the deal..

LaBonty said he was taking care of some business at the Alaska ticket counter when he saw the flyer.

“When I asked their customer service agent the why and how – they responded ‘We’re doing it cause you’re [Southwest] doing it.”

Just goes to show that good policy is contagious.

I’ve floated the idea to the Port of Portland and the PDC to try and encourage this idea to spread airport-wide — creating a pan-PDX policy of free bike baggage and sending a clear message that bikes are welcome at the airport.

Obviously each individual airline must make their own decision, but who knows… perhaps the idea will continue to spread and become permanent.

NOTE: We love your comments and work hard to ensure they are productive, considerate, and welcoming of all perspectives. Disagreements are encouraged, but only if done with tact and respect. If you see a mean or inappropriate comment, please contact us and we'll take a look at it right away. Thank you — Jonathan

16 Comments

Nick TingeyJune 20, 2011 at 3:10 pm

Plllleeeease extend this an extra week! I’m flying to PDX on July 2nd & was planning to UPS ground my bike there! This will save me so much hassle & $50+!

Santa Rosa county ships wine for free on flights, Portland should be shipping bikes for free!

Shipping a bicycle on Southwest is free if you can get it within the 62″ limit…which is very hard, and almost impossible to fit it into one box. I recently traveled on Southwest and shipped my bicycle for free by putting the frame in one box and the wheelset in another box with each one being 62″ exactly. Good job Frontier!

If only they had posted this sooner. I’m heading down to the Bay Area this weekend with my bike, and instead of shipping my bike or paying the expensive baggage fees, I found it was just cheaper to take Amtrak and pay their $5 fee after boxing up my bike. Now it’s too late, but if I had know in advance, I could have just flown for cheaper.

The Port of Portland has all kinds of ordinances governing airlines and enters lease agreements with airlines individually, but I see nothing preventing them from requiring all airlines to cease charging fees based on what your luggage is and move to a system that requires them to have the same fee for anything that meets their size and weight limits. They might have to wait until some of the leases are renewed, but it seems like they could do it if they wanted to, the same way they require food vendors to be cost competitive with portland area businesses rather than allowing them to gouge people like in chicago.

This is great! Who wants to join Elly and me on our ride to the airport this Thursday to thank them personally? We’re leaving from the Flying Pie Pizzeria
(7804 SE Stark St) at noon. Check out our ride at shift2bikes.org.